Today,
in the tension of living to die and dying to live,
I find myself breathing, laced up with the cords of promise and ribbons of love,
each part of me embraced and none forgotten

The princess was big, but not big enough to know
that the sickly, temperamental hound dog had posed no real threat to her health or safety.
Nor did she realize that none of her private adventures through the overgrown castle courtyard were as unsupervised as they appeared.
But she did know, when she recounted the events to her father, wide eyes and flapping hands, that he was proud of her for being so brave.